


Stay.

by princesscommanderlexa



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F, Fluffy, Sweet, also kind of sad
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-03
Updated: 2015-07-05
Packaged: 2018-04-07 11:00:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4260894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princesscommanderlexa/pseuds/princesscommanderlexa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke is found cut up, bruised and wandering in the forest by Lexa. She finds out that Clarke has been held by the Mountain Men for almost a year after she agreed to take her people and leave Clarke's people behind. Soon after Lexa and her people retreat, Clarke and everyone she knows and loves is taken into the bunker. Clarke, however, is forced to endure the worst of the of the torture, after having killed the Presidents father and failing to save everyone. What happens when Lexa finds the newly damaged Clarke?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The night was nearly silent, and Lexa had her eyes focused on a deer just fifteen feet ahead of her. She held her bow up higher, aiming her arrow at the unsuspecting animal. But just as she shot her arrow, a whimper echoed from somewhere in the trees. She drew her sword, and slowly moved toward the sound of crying. As she grew closer to those heaving cries, she realized that they sounded familiar. It sounded like someone she'd heard once before.The sound led her into a little clearing in the woods, one with soft grass like padding and trees that could hide one from any danger. Had she not been following the sound, she never would have even become aware of this part of the woods. She moved closer to the frail blonde that lay in a heap on the wet grass, and carefully said, "Reveal yourself." But nothing could have prepared her for when the frail blonde turned to her, looking up at her with that tear stroked face. "Clarke," She whispered.  

Lexa studied Clarke's body. Her face was caked with layer upon layer of blood and dirt and whatever else, her golden hair braided down her back with twigs and leaves sticking out of it in every direction....But what caught Lexa's attention was how thin she was, how her arms seemed as if they had come from the stick drawings of a four year old, how her eyes seemed to protrude from their sockets, how her skin nearly drooped. It had only been a year since Lexa had last seen her, but Clarke looked as if she had aged decades. After everything Lexa had done, she'd expected Clarke to come back and yell at her, make her feel bad. But she never did. When she looked at her now, Clarke seemed too tired, too hungry, too broken to be angry at Lexa anymore. For a year, Lexa heard nothing from the Sky People, let alone the princess. She had expected this was a cold shoulder from her betrayal, but she could see now that she had been wrong. Over the past year, She'd wished and dreamed of seeing Clarke every chance she got. She'd hoped so many times that Clarke would come back, that she would listen to why she did what she did, that she would forgive her. But now, here she stood in front of her, showing obvious signs of both psychological and physical torture, and Lexa had no clue what to say. 

"What happened to you?" Lexa whispered, staring at the gashes on her pale, skinny legs. But Clarke didn't answer. Instead, she stumbled into Lexa's arms. "I'm so happy to see you," She breathed between sobs. Lexa wrapped her arms around Clarke, her heart breaking at the sound of her pain. "We should go to my tent. You can get the medical attention you require there." Lexa told her softly. Clarke nodded, agreeing to this. Together, they quietly walked (well, Lexa walked. Clarke stumbled on her bad leg.) back to her tent, where Lexa called for a healer. 

She was helping Clarke onto her bed when the Healer came in. 

"Help her," Lexa demanded. The healer, called Lavinia, dutifully complied as Clarke fell into a deep slumber.

Clarke awoke hours later with Lexa watching her from her chair.  "How are you feeling?" Lexa asked, rushing to Clarke's side. "Like crap." She replied weakly. Lexa stared down at her, feeling guilty. She was sure this was her fault somehow, and it only broke her heart more knowing that Clarke was so changed by the torture, she didn't even have energy to fight anymore. "After you left, we...tried to get...them out" Clarke said slowly. "But we...failed." Tears rushed down Clarke's cheeks as she continued, "A lot of people must have gotten away, because I didn't see....Raven or Octavia...but Bellamy and....Monty...a lot of people were still there. They...took the bone marrow from my mom and from...Monty...But because I killed the President's father, they kept me alive." 

Clarke started crying again. "I tried to stop them, but they killed...so..many...people." Lexa felt like someone had set a million tons on her chest. "They killed my mom," She croaked. Before, Lexa had justified her decision by telling herself it was for her people, that Clarke would have done the same, that good leaders must make sacrifices sometimes, that it was for the best. But as she looked at Clarke's bruised skin, she could only remember Costia. How was it that everybody she loved only ended up in pain? How had she become such a hazard to everybody around her? She stood up to leave. She couldn't stand to see Clarke cry, to hear her weak and tired voice tell her about everything she had caused. 

But as she reached the cloth doors of her tent, Clarke called out for her again. "Don't leave me," she pleaded. "Please don't leave me again."  _Again_. The way that word tumbled out of her mouth, she sounded so innocent, so vulnerable and afraid. Lexa turned back toward her. "How are you not angry with me?" She wondered. "Why are you not refusing my help? Why are you not calling me names or declaring me selfish? Why do you still want me here?" She tried not to look at her. 

"You were protecting your people," She said simply. "I was angry at first...but then, after a few months, I thought I might die, and I had to come to terms with what you did and realize that if the roles were reversed...I would have done the same." Lexa bit her lip as Clarke begged her not to leave once more. "Please...I don't want to be alone tonight." She begged. Lexa met her eyes, and felt a wave of responsibility come over her. She had caused her so much pain. She was the reason she now had no mother. She was the cause of the sky people's demise. This wasn't about her. This wasn't about feeling sorry for herself. It was the least she could do to grant Clarke's wishes.

Lexa crawled into the bed beside her, wrapping her arms around that tiny frame. She could feel Clarke's muscles relax, the slowing of her quickened heartbeat, the rise and fall of her breathing as she lay comfortably in her arms. For a long time, neither girl said a word. It was so silent, Lexa even started to believe that Clarke was asleep already. But just as she closed her eyes, she could hear Clarke's broken voice whispering to her.  

"Promise me something, Lexa." She groaned softly as she shifted onto her side. 

"Anything." 

"Promise you won't ever do it again. That you'll stay." Clarke looked her in the eyes for a moment before laying her head on the pillow. Lexa stared into her blue eyes, those eyes that once held so much fight, so much defiance. Those eyes that now held so much loss, so much pain, so much betrayal. How could she not promise anything to that face? Clarke could have asked her to put lightening in a bottle, and Lexa would have gone to the ends of the earth to give it to her. "I promise." She whispered, running her hands through Clarke's tangled hair. But by then, Clarke was already asleep, snuggled up against her. 

And so she repeated it to herself, so that she would never forget. "I promise." 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loads of kissing. Bellamy makes a small cameo. Lexa is slightly afraid of Clarke.

_After a while, Clarke stopped counting the days. There were so many days that after a while they all started to blend together, and everything became a blur. A hopeless, torturous blur as she watched each one of her loved ones die mercilessly._

_After a while, she stopped counting the number of people who didn't come back to their cages. At first, there were a lot of them. But as the year went on, the number dwindled and the cages became emptier and emptier. And when they didn't die from the surgery, they died from illness or malnutrition. Clarke had watched her friends croak their last breath, listened to them pray for forgiveness, cry in their sleep._

_A_ _fter a while, she stopped hoping for someone to save her. Nobody was coming. The grounders retreated a long time ago, taking their broken loved ones limping back with them. Lexa probably thought that Clarke's people were angry, simply not speaking to them. She wouldn't send her people to Clarke's camp because Lexa would probably think that it was unnecessary. Clarke was alone, rotting away in a cage of filth and little food._

_After a while, Clarke could only become used to the various methods of torture she received._ _When they whipped her, it felt like the sun had placed a hand on her back. It made her skin scream, her throat light up in flames, her eyes burn. She couldn't breathe. The scars along her back had become markers of every single day of torture, every single lashing she got for the death of the president, for the death of the men and women that the 48 caused long ago, for trying to put them in danger. She got a lashing for every single little boy and girl who almost died. And for every single little boy and girl that could've died in their mother's womb. She got a lashing for just being alive, for breathing._

 

 **ONE YEAR EARLIER** _  
_

The world around her was quiet. 

They'd turned off the lights in the cage room, so Clarke couldn't see much anymore. 

She closed her eyes and tried to excersize in her head. She couldn't let herself go crazy. But all she thought of were the screams the wafted into the room. The crying that once filled that place. The pain that swallowed her people whole. But she tried harder, and harder and harder to think of something that didn't hurt. She tried to think of Finn, and the way he used to call her Princess, the way he looked at her and smiled at her. But it only reminded her of when he died. It only reminded her of the blood on her hands. So, she tried to think of her father. The way he used to read to her when she was just a little girl, when he used to dance around her room with her...but it only reminded her of when he got floated. So, she tried to think of something else. Anything. And then she thought of her. Lexa. 

It broke her heart more than it made her angry. Maybe it was the kiss that made her expect more from her. Maybe it was the way her hands caressed her face so gently that made Clarke believe that Lexa could be trusted. More than anything, Clarke thought maybe it was how badly she wanted to believe that Lexa could be trusted. _Don't think about that_ , she told herself. _Think about the parts of her that make you happy. You won't survive much longer by being emotional about every damn thing._ So, she thought about the way Lexa's lips had felt on her own. How she had never even noticed the feelings growing inside her body for her until that kiss. Sure, she thought, there had been same-sex couples on the arc. It was almost a celebrated thing. The arc was so small that the only way to really keep the population under control was either a strict one child rule or allowing same-sex couples. The people of the arc chose both, one to keep the human race populated, and the other to make those numbers reasonable. But every single day up until Lexa kissed her, Clarke had been sure that she was straight. It was just natural to her, in the sense that she had automatically been attracted to boys on the arc. Lexa's kiss surprised her, but how much Clarke enjoyed it herself surprised her more than anything. She liked the way Finn kissed her. She liked how sure he was, and how rough his lips and hands were, and secretly...she loved it when he called her princess. And she had thought about Bellamy's lips more times than she cared to admit, and imagined they felt amazing. Especially when she got angry with him. But Lexa gave her a whole new perspective on kissing. Lexa was passionate, but still her kiss felt...meticulous, like despite the spontaneity of the kiss, she had thought about how she would do it. Maybe even practiced it somehow. With every guy she had ever kissed, Clarke had never felt like they had imagined it for a long time like she had. She thought it was more like, they thought about it every now and then, mostly when they were...alone..doing...things...but never like her. Where she imagined it for hours at a time, draw pictures of it, saw something and thought "wow that would be an amazing place to make out in a very sensual way". Even though the kiss had lasted just a few short moments, it hung to Clarke for...well, a year and a half. 

The jiggle of keys snapped her out of her daydream. Clarke dared herself to look out of her cage, and saw a man walking toward her cage. And even though she knew the man would still see her, she sank to the back of her cage and tried to become invisible. It didn't work. He yanked her out, and dragged her along. He stood her up against a wall, and...freezing water. He sprayed her with freezing water, then scalding hot. Back and forth. She felt ready to faint. She tried to think of different things. Tried to draw pictures using the demons in her head. She imagined the steam turning each demon to ash, and slipping her fingers into the ash. She imagined drawing trees, and stars, and things that still made her feel okay. But she could still feel the torture. 

She could still hear the screaming and the crying. 

**PRESENT DAY**

 

Fresh water. 

Clarke had never in her life felt more relief than the moment in which she found that she was bathing via fresh water. It had been weeks, but the water still comforted her to no end. As did the colors of nature. Being locked in a metal cage for a year gave her only various forms of grey-blue, florescent light, or darkness. But being outside...and being aware of the fact that she was outside...it gave her something so pleasant that she couldn't quite put her finger on what it was. She had become obsessed with the colors of nature, and documenting them. Lexa had gotten her a little notebook for her to write down her observations in. As Clarke floated in the water, Lexa stared off into space near a tree. She had been distant. She only spoke when Clarke spoke to her, only looked at Clarke when she wasn't looking, only slept beside her at night out of obligation. In reality, Lexa was waiting for Clarke to snap. The lack of anger terrified her, and the longer she felt Clarke was hiding it, the more utterly terrified she grew of the moment in which Clarke would finally get angry at her. Lexa hadn't been afraid of anybody with Clarke's size and stature in her life, but when it came to Clarke, she always felt like a child when Clarke was angry. She kept a good distance, and really tried not to get hit. 

But Clarke was so insistent. Not insistent in the sense that she was constantly begging for attention, but insistent in the sense that she was always trapping Lexa in situations that made her deeply uncomfortable and couldn't even hope to get out of somehow. Lexa knew that Clarke was just trying to get to see that she wasn't angry, but it freaked her out. She was just too calm. How could anybody be that calm? The only thing Lexa felt she could hope for was an instant death, rather than a stabbing at the hands of the blonde. "Lexa?" Clarke said suddenly. Lexa nearly jumped out of her skin. Despite not being angry, Clarke secretly enjoyed doing that to Lexa. What could she say? She was passive aggressive. "Yes?" Lexa replied as Clarke sat down beside her. Clarke was quiet for a long time, and suddenly, Lexa wondered how fast she could swim for when Clarke came after her. Instead, when Clarke finally spoke, she said, "I'm not angry at you." Lexa looked at the blonde, puzzled. "How?" She asked. 

"Because being mad at you is really me being mad at myself. I knew I couldn't trust you from the beginning, and I misjudged. It's not your fault I romanticized you." Clarke sighed, "When my Mother was dying, that's when it occurred to me. She apologized for being so angry with me, because she had been the one to put me in the situation I was in in the first place. Me, a 17 year old girl. She told me it wasn't my fault she put me in that situation." Lexa listened quietly as Clarke continued, "For the first few months, I was so angry. Everybody was. I was angry at you, and everybody else was angry at me. And everybody that was angry with me, they died angry. And over time, I thought, "Do I really want to die pissed?" And I figured, no. I really didn't want to die angry. Because if I stayed angry, I would have become heartless. And if I became heartless, I would have probably started making the same decisions you make." Lexa stared into the woods now, wondering if maybe she could outrun her. Clarke's voice was rising, and nobody could tell Lexa that Clarke wasn't angry. "Oh, wait. I did start making some of the decisions you make. And look where that got me." Clarke furiously ripped a bit of moss off of a rock, and Lexa suddenly felt even more afraid. But instead of getting angry, Clarke stopped in her tracks and kissed Lexa. Maybe it was the mixture of Lexa's anxiety about Clarke, and Clarke's bottled up anger towards Lexa that made them both so passionate, or maybe it was the amount of tension that had been between them since their last kiss that made them both so intense. Either way, the kiss was every kind of kinky. Clarke bit her lip, and then kissed them softly, as if repairing a wound, and Lexa melted each time she did. She would kiss her bottom lip first, and then the top lip. And then, she would go full force, and then slow down, and then go full force again. It was like eating something salty and sweet.

Confusing. 

**ONE YEAR EARLIER**

The worst form of torture Clarke had received was the torture by her own friends and family. Given a whip, fire, water, or just their fists, people Clarke had grown to know and love were forced to whip her. And when they got too tired, she was forced to whip them. If she didn't hit them hard enough, deliver enough pain, hurt them enough, they wouldn't give her food or water for days. They would throw her into a bin with the the dead, and not let her out for weeks. It seemed easy enough in the beginning, because the disgust of dead bodies was psychological. But over time, the human body started to smell. And then the bugs came. And it became like a certain type of hell. Clarke would be bawling by the time they let her out. Clarke only had her excersize to keep her sane. First, she counted from 1 to 100. Then, she tried to remember things from History class. Dates. Stories. Names. Wars. Then, she tried to think of happy memories. She thought of her father, she thought of drawing, she thought of kisses, and she thought of food. Lastly, she wrote letters. In her head, she wrote letters to everybody who loved her and everybody she loved. And then, she slept. Her dreams were of nothing but her floating, and they lasted minutes before she would wake from the sounds of creaks and moans of the old metal compound. 

Before she ran, she had watched the last of her friends wither away. Bellamy. Their cages were right across from each other, and he had received as much torture as Clarke, if not more. He stared at her a lot, his eyes both empty and sad at the same time. But he gave up his life for her. When the man with the keys came to unlock our cages, he waited until we were both unlocked to headbutt the man as hard as he possibly could. The man fought back, but Bellamy knocked him out still. An alarm was sounded, but before she could heed his warning to run, he pulled her into a kiss. "Do not come back for me," he told her. "I will find a way out. Just find my sister and raven." She was still shocked by the kiss. She just kept touching her lips as she ran. She couldn't help it.   

The thought of Bellamy liking her had never crossed her mind. Exactly like Lexa. She thought this as she ran away, about that kiss and about not dying. 

She couldn't stop thinking about it.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you like this one! If anybody is reading, haha.  
> If anybody wants anything specific written, please tell me in the comments!


End file.
